While the ruling provides a small glimmer of hope for the pair, it means there is no end in sight to a legal saga that has seen them detained in the emirate for more than three years.

The court's decision follows the filing last week of an Arabic translation of a Victorian judge's ruling in a related civil case brought by developer Sunland against Joyce and school friend Angus Reed.

Victorian Supreme Court judge Clyde Croft threw out Sunland's claim and slammed evidence given by its executives about the property deal at the heart of the criminal trial.

Two prominent Australian lawyers, Julian Burnside, QC, and Robert Richter, QC, said Justice Croft's ruling meant the Dubai case should be reopened.

Advertisement

This was ''because the Victorian Supreme Court judge made findings about the credit of key witnesses on facts that are in issue in the Dubai case and those findings are completely inconsistent with the prosecution case,'' Mr Burnside told BusinessDay.

Mr Richter said that if the trial had been conducted in Australia, it should have been adjourned when the new evidence came to light.

''A conviction under such circumstances would likely be set aside on the grounds that it denied procedural fairness to those accused and, if the fresh evidence is objectively of sufficient weight, there will have been a gross miscarriage of justice,'' he said in a legal opinion provided to the Joyce family.

At the heart of the two cases is a property deal at the height of Dubai's property boom in 2007, when Joyce and Lee were working for Dubai Waterfront, a subsidiary of state-owned developer Nakheel.

Under the deal, Sunland paid Prudentia, a company controlled by Joyce's school friend Angus Reed, a $14 million ''consulting fee'' for introducing it to a piece of prime waterfront land known as Plot D17.

In the criminal case, prosecutors allege the fee was an illegal commission, while in the civil trial Sunland claimed it was misled by Joyce and Mr Reed into believing Mr Reed owned the land.

The civil case ended badly for the company and its Middle East chief, David Brown, who Justice Croft found lacked credibility and had probably provided Dubai authorities with fabricated evidence.

Under cross-examination, Mr Brown admitted he had made statements to Dubai prosecutors that were ''not entirely correct''.

Sunland, which has lodged an appeal against Justice Croft's ruling, declined to comment.